Spoilers Please explain the baddie plan

[Yistaan]

It just occurred to me that the changelings didn't even really need the Borg. They had infiltrated Starfleet. They can apparently easily tamper with transporters undetected.

All they had to do was infect everyone with "irumodic syndrome", or cancer DNA, or genetic insanity, or whatever. There was tons of ways they could get revenge on the Fed once they had access to transporters that didn't require the timing and flashiness of Frontier Day, and wouldn't even require being bossed around by the nasty Borg at all who will inevitably turn on the changelings anyway.

 

[Racefuel]

Beyond having inactive DNA changes in picard..how had the Borg infiltrated Starfleet? They needed the changlings to make the transporter changes, do the fleet formation stuff, etc making it so all the ships could be easily controlled, yadda yadda.

Without the Changlings the Borg had no way of spreading their "infection"

 

[Yistaan]

Beyond having inactive DNA changes in picard..how had the Borg infiltrated Starfleet? They needed the changlings to make the transporter changes, do the fleet formation stuff, etc making it so all the ships could be easily controlled, yadda yadda.

Without the Changlings the Borg had no way of spreading their "infection"

I'm not debating the Borg need the changelings. It's the changelings that don't need the Borg! Vadic doesn't need to be threatened by the Borg Queen! She could just infect any evil DNA she wants (not necessarily Borg) into Starfleet's transporters without the Borg. What will the Queen do? Scream in her cube?

 

[Racefuel]

But the Borg receptor/transmitter DNA is what allowed the fleet to be controlled via mass assimilation..

The Changlings could only do so much

 

[Yistaan]

But the Borg receptor/transmitter DNA is what allowed the fleet to be controlled via mass assimilation..

The Changlings could only do so much

There are any number of horrific diseases in Trek that could cause mass death on a wide scale without Borg DNA. All the changelings have to do is beam them into people. Maybe not make the death so instant until it's too late and incurable.

Veridium Six poisoning that killed K'Mpec for example, or Telurian plague.

 

[Sci]

No, it's an opinion. It's wrong, but opinions are such relative things.

Try telling that to a court of law. You'll find that laws governing copyright and trademark infringement are determinants of what constitutes "real [intellectual property]," not your personal enjoyment of it.

S03E10 Spoiler question:

Spoiler: Why?

Can anyone explain, why the changelings didn’t kill the starfleet officers, they replaced? And why didn’t the Borg infected changelings act like Borg?

Spoiler

The Changelings kept their victims alive so as to extract information from them to better imitate them. There were never any Borg-infected Changelings.

It just occurred to me that the changelings didn't even really need the Borg. They had infiltrated Starfleet. They can apparently easily tamper with transporters undetected.

All they had to do was infect everyone with "irumodic syndrome", or cancer DNA, or genetic insanity, or whatever. There was tons of ways they could get revenge on the Fed once they had access to transporters that didn't require the timing and flashiness of Frontier Day, and wouldn't even require being bossed around by the nasty Borg at all who will inevitably turn on the changelings anyway.

That's true! Vadic's desire for instant dramatic revenge obviously got in the way of thinking more rationally about how she could have gotten away with inflicting mass death.

 

[fireproof78]

Pretty sure Vadic wasn't rational.

 

[locborg]

Spoiler

Maybe you should actually watch the episode, because Riker explains why some officers were kept alive it in the log entry directly before Tuvok's scene.

And we didn't see any Borg infected changelings in the episode

Spoiler: -

i just rewatched it, Riker said that the Changelings kept the officers alive, he did not say why though. Also where did they keep all those officers they switched out? It doesn’t really make sense

also i guess it was implied that at least Vadic was somehow half assimilated by the Queen. Which could mean, that the other changelings could also have been compromised with Borg DNA..

 

[Sci]

Spoiler: -

i just rewatched it, Riker said that the Changelings kept the officers alive, he did not say why though.

Yes, he did. To get information from their victims to better impersonate them.

also i guess it was implied that at least Vadic was somehow half assimilated by the Queen.

No. This was never implied. It is not present in the text whatsoever.

 

[Charles Phipps]

The final episode clears up pretty much everything. The Borg were DONE and it was really just the Borg Queen, some deranged changelings, and one Cube.

 

[fireproof78]

"It was the last act of a desperate Borg."*

*with all due respect to Blazing Saddles.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

Only the Jurati Borg should still be around. The Borg’s goose is cooked.

 

[Charles Phipps]

Only the Jurati Borg should still be around. The Borg’s goose is cooked.

Until the Borg rebuild, Dalek style.

 

[Sci]

Until the Borg rebuild, Dalek style.

I mean, a writer who's bound and determined can find a plot device to bring them back if he really wants, but I don't know what the point would be. I don't see what else you can do with the traditional Borg that wouldn't just be a re-tread of what's been done before.

If I'm an ST writer looking to bring the Borg back, I'm gonna use the Jurati Borg. I'm much more interested in how people deal with this Borg collective consciousness that operates on the basis of mutual consent rather than conquest. Would there be people out there who would willingly, consensually join this new collective consciousness? People who would honestly think that a collective identity is a better way of life for themselves than individuality, and would willingly give that up? How would Federation society react to that? Would there be an anti-Jurati Borg backlash? A moral panic over the influence of the Jurati Borg on the rest of the Federation? More discrimination against XBs? How would XBs react to the Jurati Borg -- with acceptance or hostility?

 

[anh165]

I don't believe this is the last of the Borg in the prime timeline, we may see a past view on their origins ... perhaps Q gives further insight into them, and perhaps answer the question of why they exist at all? Were they a creation of the continuum to bring some form of balance in the Galaxy?

 

[Sci]

I don't believe this is the last of the Borg in the prime timeline, we may see a past view on their origins ... perhaps Q gives further insight into them, and perhaps answer the question of why they exist at all? Were they a creation of the continuum to bring some form of balance in the Galaxy?

Why? The Borg don't bring any kind of balance to the galaxy. They just consume and disrupt and harm.

 

[Charles Phipps]

I mean, a writer who's bound and determined can find a plot device to bring them back if he really wants, but I don't know what the point would be. I don't see what else you can do with the traditional Borg that wouldn't just be a re-tread of what's been done before.

I'm not sure what people have a problem with on the Borg. They're often badly used but there's nothing wrong with them as a metaphor for collectivism, authoritarianism, transhumanism (or its failure), and just as nasty space zombies.

What DO the Borg bring to the franchise, though?

Essentially, an existential challenge to the setting's thesis. "What DO you do with an enemy that can't ever be negotiated with or is unreasonably hostile when you are a progressive peaceful society?"

 

[Sci]

I'm not sure what people have a problem with on the Borg. They're often badly used but there's nothing wrong with them as a metaphor for collectivism, authoritarianism, transhumanism (or its failure), and just as nasty space zombies.

What DO the Borg bring to the franchise, though?

Essentially, an existential challenge to the setting's thesis. "What DO you do with an enemy that can't ever be negotiated with or is unreasonably hostile when you are a progressive peaceful society?"

But that basically makes them just an anthropomorphized version of a natural disaster -- an existential threat you cannot negotiate with, only cope with. And the thing about natural disaster stories is, they're limited in creative scope. At a certain point, there are only so many story beats you can hit, and then stories about surviving natural disasters all start to resemble one-another.

Same thing with the traditional Borg. At a certain point, you will have exhausted all the variations on "Borg invade" you can do and they'll start to resemble one-another. At a certain point, it all just becomes another variation on "The Best of Both Worlds."

 

[fireproof78]

Same thing with the traditional Borg. At a certain point, you will have exhausted all the variations on "Borg invade" you can do and they'll start to resemble one-another. At a certain point, it all just becomes another variation on "The Best of Both Worlds."

Isn't that what we just got?

 

[Sci]

Isn't that what we just got?

Yup. And it's fine since this is the TNG swan song, but bringing them back again is a one-way ticket to creative stagnation.